Google Inc.

Intel Corporation

International Business Machines Corporation

Lev Finkelstein

Efraim Rotem

Aviad Cohen

Ronny Ronen

Doron Rajwan

Alexandru Marius Pasca

Yosi Markovich

Dmitry Rudoy

Eddo Kim

Pravir Kumar Gupta

Ganesh Ramanarayanan

Avi Mendelson

Tomer Shmiel

Tal Cohen

Jun Gong

Sarveshwar Duddu

Adi Mano

Murali Krishna Viswanathan

Ari Shotland

Shaul Markovitch

Alon Mittelman

Daphne Dembo

Evan B Roseman

Artiom Myaskouvskey

Gilad Benjamin

Yossi Matias

Benedict A Gomes

Yu Zhang

Byungha Chun

Oren Lamdan

Ye Jia

Fernando Pereira

Robert Andrew James Clark

Chun-an Chan

Vincent Wan

Yehuda Arie Koren

Eran Ofek

Gunes Erkan

Marius Pasca

Eugene Wallach

Andrei Heilper

Isaac Elias

Dan Guez

Giora Unger

Sivan Eiger

Itzhak Barokas

Dror Eiger

Yossi Abulafia

Adam De La Zerda

A method includes receiving an input text utterance to be synthesized into expressive speech having an intended prosody and a target voice and generating, using a first text-to-speech (TTS) model, an intermediate synthesized speech representation tor the input text utterance. The intermediate synthesized speech representation possesses the intended prosody. The method also includes providing the intermediate synthesized speech representation to a second TTS model that includes an encoder portion and a decoder portion. The encoder portion is configured to encode the intermediate synthesized speech representation into an utterance embedding that specifies the intended prosody. The decoder portion is configured to process the input text utterance and the utterance embedding to generate an output audio signal of expressive speech that has the intended prosody specified by the utterance embedding and speaker characteristics of the target voice.

Two-level speech prosody transfer

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for generating answer terms for scoring answer passages. In one aspect, a method includes accessing resource data describing a set of resources, identifying question phrases in the resources, for each identified question phrase in a resource, selecting in the resource a section of text subsequent to the question phrase as an answer, the answer having a plurality of terms, grouping the question phrases into groups of question phrases, and for each group: generating, from the terms of the answers for each question phrase in the group, answer terms and for each answer term, an answer term weight, and storing the answer terms and answer term weights in association with one or more queries.

Weighted answer terms for scoring answer passages

In general, aspects of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include the actions of receiving a search query initial input from a user, receiving a plurality of query auto-completions based on the search query initial input, receiving social graph data, the social graph data being specific to the user, for each query auto-completion of the plurality of query auto-completions, determining a ranking score, the ranking score being determined at least partially based on the social graph data, and transmitting instructions to display the plurality of query auto-completions to the user in a rank order that is determined based on ranking scores.

Search query auto-completions based on social graph

Methods, systems, and apparatus are described that include receiving a sequence of one or more characters representing a first partial query entered into a search field on a computing device. A first list of query completions for the first partial query is provided for display on the computing device. One or more additional characters are then entered into the search field, where the sequence of characters and the additional characters cumulatively represent a second partial query. A second list of query completions are then obtained for the second partial query, and one or more query completions appearing in the first and the second lists are identified. Demotion scores for the identified query completions are then calculated which are used to demote the identified query completions to a lesser position within the second list, thereby forming a refined second list for display on the computing device.

Demotion of already observed search query completions

Technology described herein identifies and demotes query completions which divert users from their original search intent. The identified query completions may represent informational requests that are amusing diversions for some users, but which are not relevant to the actual information of interest for many users. For example, the identified query completions may represent information requests that some users may find humorous or entertaining, but which are not relevant to actual information of interest for many other users. The identification of these query completions may allow alternative query completions to be provided that can more likely assist users in finding the information they actually seek.

Identification of query completions which change users' original search intent

Technology described herein enhances a user's search experience by providing refined search results that are relevant to a displayed document. Contextual search results are obtained which identify a list of documents responsive to a formulated query that is based on the user's search query, as well as one or more supplemental terms that are based on content in the displayed document during user entry of the search query. The contextual search results are then 'refined' by re-ranking the documents in the list, based on the similarity between the user's original search query and terms in these documents. This re-ranking enables contextual search results to be provided that are also highly relevant to the user's informational need.

Query formulation and search in the context of a displayed document

Methods, systems and apparatus are described herein that include receiving a partial query entered into a search field on a computing device, and data indicating a document presented on the computing device during entry of the partial query. Search results are then obtained which identify respective lists of search results documents for corresponding candidate query completions in a set obtained for the partial query. Similarity scores are then calculated for candidate query completions based at least in part on a similarity between content in the displayed document and content in search result documents in the corresponding lists. One or more candidate query completions in the set are then selected as refined query completions for the partial query based at least in part on the similarity scores and provided for presentation by the computing device.

Query completions in the context of a presented document

Methods, systems and apparatus are described herein that include obtaining metadata within a document, where the metadata comprises a sequence of terms. Tags are assigned to terms in the sequence of terms based at least in part on grammatical relationships between the terms, thereby forming a corresponding sequence of tags. A determination is made that the sequence of terms is grammatically correct based at least in part on tags within the corresponding sequence of tags. In response to the determination, the sequence of terms is stored as a query suggestion.

Processing of document metadata for use as query suggestions

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for triggering music answer boxes. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a query, obtaining a plurality of search results responsive to the query, the search results being results from a search of web resources on the Internet, and determining from the plurality of search results that the query is a music query. Music data for a song responsive to the query is obtained, where the music data comprises a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of song content of the song on the Internet. A music answer box is generated for the query, where the music answer box comprises the music data and a link to the URL of the song content, and the music answer box is provided in addition to search results.

Triggering music answer boxes relevant to user search queries

Methods, systems and apparatus are described herein that include receiving a partial query entered into a search field on a computing device, and data indicating a document presented on the computing device during entry of the partial query. The presented document has been edited by a user of the computing device. Search results are then obtained which identify respective lists of search results documents for corresponding candidate query completions in a set obtained for the partial query. Similarity scores are then calculated for candidate query completions based at least in part on a similarity between content in the displayed document and content in search result documents in the corresponding lists. One or more candidate query completions in the set are then selected as refined query completions for the partial query based at least in part on the similarity scores and provided for presentation by the computing device.

Query completions in the context of a user's own document

Technology is described herein for creating new, inferred queries that are suitable for use as query suggestions. The technology includes mapping different past queries that represent different information requests, but that share a number of terms having the same or similar form. An inferred query is created by replacing unshared terms in one mapped query with the unshared terms in another mapped query, based on the similarity between the unshared terms in the two mapped queries. The inferred query thus represents a new information request that is derived from the information requests of the past queries used to form it. The inferred query can then be provided as a query suggestion, which increases the likelihood of providing query suggestions that will assist users in finding the information they seek. In doing so, meaningful query suggestions can be provided to users seeking information outside the coverage of the past queries.

Creation of inferred queries for use as query suggestions

Methods and apparatus related to processing of at least one descriptive term of a query to obtain at least one query suggestion for a query. A descriptive term may be identified in a partial search query. A modified partial query suggestion request for the partial search query may be transmitted that omits the descriptive term. At least one query suggestion result for the modified partial query suggestion request may be received and the descriptive term reinserted into the query suggestion result.

Creating query suggestions based on processing of descriptive term in a partial query

A technology is described herein for identifying suggested query completions for a partial query based upon unique queries which have suffixes similar to the suffix of the partial query, but have prefixes which do not contain the prefix of the partial query. The technology described herein selects suggested query completions for the partial query based on terms occurring at the ends of the unique queries, in a manner which is not limited to past queries that include all of the terms in the partial query. As a result, meaningful suggested query completions that are likely to assist the user in completing a partial query can be provided in instances where terms in the prefix of the partial query are ambiguous or uncommon.

Generating word completions based on shared suffix analysis

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Netanya, Israel

Lev Finkelstein